Friendlyness and the Human Rights - Live at the '09 WSRF

2012-02-25T19:02:00.002-08:00

Since this WSRF blog has been dormant for a while, I thought I'd share a live recording (and an interview) from/about Friendlyness and the Human Rights and their performance at the 2009 Winnipeg Ska and Reggae Festival. This originally appeared on my blog WITCHPOLICE. -Sam.

I love this band. I had never heard of them before the 2009 Winnipeg Ska and Reggae Festival, but once I saw them live, I was hooked.

As part of that year's festival, a few of the shows were broadcast live on CKUW and UMFM. I grabbed the Friendlyness and the Human Rights set off the radio, and along with their Ten Songs pre-release (which I picked up at the show), I've been listening to their music pretty steadily ever since.

Here's the audio from their performance at the Royal Albert, as originally broadcast on campus radio, along with an interview with Friendlyness, where he talks about the band's new album, One Thing, his devotion to Rastafari, his long history in the Canadian reggae scene, and his side gig with high-profile Canadian rock band Big Sugar.

Check it out. I'm very happy to share this on Witchpolice:

Download the whole thing.

Stream it:

1. Jah Rastafari

2. Human Rights

3. What Are We Fighting For?

4. Human Vibrations

5. I Want Her

6. One Thing

7. More Peace

8. Get Up Stand Up

9. One More Draw

WITCHPOLICE: This is a recording of your live set from the Royal Albert in Winnipeg, back in 2009. Do you have any specific recollection of that show?

FRIENDLYNESS: I remember it was a really hot night and the music was good all around... the Idlers were wicked and we had been on the road for a couple of weeks so our performance was very tight.

W: It looks like most of the band's upcoming live dates tend to be in the Toronto area. Is touring a priority for Friendlyness and the Human Rights? Any plans to head west in the near future?

F: We love touring, but not so much in the winter. I've done the cross-Canada tour in winter a couple of times already and it can be rough with whiteout road conditions in the mountains. As much as I love touring, I love my life also. With the full-length album out now, we're hoping to tour again this summer, coast to coast if possible so we can get the music directly to the people.

W: About your new record, One Thing ...is it a self-released album?

F: One Thing is a self released album. We produced it ourselves and paid for the recordings and mixing by pooling and saving money from shows. We also borrowed $2,000 to pay for the manufacturing. We got a lot of help along the way too from people like Steve 'Pro' Legros who put in countless hours of editing and Kate Conrad who did something like 10 revisions to the CD artwork at our request for next to nothing.

W: When you were in Winnipeg in '09, I picked up the CD you were selling at the time, Ten Songs (Pre-release). The track listing is a little different from the eventually released album -- for one thing, there are a few versions on One Thing that didn't appear on the pre-release. There are also some songs from your live set that don't appear on either release. How did you choose which songs made it on the final record?

F: For the final record, we had to leave off "How Can This Be Happening?" because we didn't own the rights to the rhythm track and I couldn't get permission. The junglist remix for 'One More Draw' got left off because it just didn't fit with the overall sound of the rest of the disc. The instrumentals or 'versions' that we did put on are getting a lot of love because we used to always get versions on our 45s ...but since they're not around as much nowadays in the digital world, the version is getting left out. It's a foundation tradition that we wanted to keep alive. Also we'd love to hear some other artists on our version tracks so we put them out there.

W: Following up on that, the song "Jah Rastafari" doesn't appear on either CD, and is, to my mind at least, one of the band's strongest tunes. A live YouTube video of the song was actually how I was introduced to the band in the first place. Is that one being saved for a future release?

F: "Jah Rastafari" is a song that I originally did with a group called Truths and Rights and a live version was released on our 2005 CD Live Up, but we all agree that it's a strong song so we keep it in our live show usually as the first song. Sets the tone for the set, y'know?

W: Obviously the lyrical themes, both in the live set and on your releases, are very Rastafari-heavy. What does Rastafari mean to you, and why do you think it's important to spread that message through your music?

F: Rastafari means everything to me. Love, life, reality, consciousness, spirituality, awareness, mindfulness, the ancient, the modern, relation to creation and the creator. Jah is the same God of the Torah and Old Testament (Psalm 68:4), God of Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. Same God of Moses who gave us the Commandments, God of Iyesus Christos, revered by millions as the Son of God/Word of God/God in person, whom Muslims consider a prophet. Ras Tafari, Haile Selassie the First, is the fulfillment of Christ in His Kingly Character seated in this modern age as the King of Kings in the most ancient Solomonic/ Christian throne on Earth and the love and example that He showed to the world is something that I would like to share with my family. It's important to share because it's like hearing the best-kept secret that's so beneficial for everyone and wanting to share it with your family and friends in the hope that it benefits them also.

W: Has playing such overtly spiritual music had an effect on the type of audience you attract? F: I think our audience is mostly attracted by the music itself and the message comes with the music. As religious as I am, I don't force it down people's throats either. Most of our songs are about the human experience, the human condition, so people can relate to that. People like to hear songs of reality, consciousness, awareness and even spirituality because they're not getting much of that in the mainstream.

W: As a Canadian reggae band, have you faced questions of 'authenticity'? Obviously at this point, reggae is coming from all corners of the globe, and being performed by people of varied backgrounds, but have you come across situations where the band has to prove itself onstage before die-hard reggae audiences will accept it? I think it's very clear from your music that reggae is serious business, and that your devotion to Rastafari is not a gimmick or merely posturing, but I imagine there are people out there who think, "OK, this is a white guy named 'Friendlyness' putting on a JA accent and playing reggae music ...I can't take this seriously." Having seen the band live, I imagine once you hit the stage, that would silence any doubters, but is this a common occurrence?

F: I think that there will always be people who think, "wow, a white guy playing reggae" or "wow, a black guy playing skater rock," or "wow, a brown guy playing country,"because historically and traditionally things have been divided in exclusivity but the world is changing and getting a lot smaller. We are interacting more with each other and smashing boundaries and tearing down walls and that's a good thing. On the back of the $20 Canadian bill there is a quote from French-Canadian author Gabrielle Roy that says "could we ever know each other in the slightest without the arts?"

Furthermore, I would like to point out that I don't believe in such a thing as white or black people. Haile Selassie 1st says that "black and white as a form of speech and as a means of judging mankind should be eliminated from human society." So we just do what we do, who wants to like it can like it, who wants to fight it can fight it.

W: OK, the vibraphone: it sounds great, and that's one of the highlights of your set, but it can't be convenient to lug that thing across the country, especially since it's only really used for the one song. Why do you feel it's worth the effort?

F: The vibraphone is big and clunky and heavy and takes up a lot of space but it is really something different and Eric plays it quite well so it's totally worth it. We have two vibraphone songs now.

W: What are your main influences as a vocalist and as a group? There are some obvious nods to various reggae artists even on this live recording, even in terms of the rhythms used.

F: I got into hardcore Jamaican reggae in about 1984 so I'm influenced by all good reggae from Studio 1 days with the Skatalites, Jackie Mittoo, the Heptones, Soul Vendors; through to Channel One with the Roots Radics, Gregory Isaacs, Dennis Brown, Sugar Minott; through to King Jammy's, Admiral Bailey, Josie Wales, Little Twitch, through to 90's dancehall, Shabba, Ninjaman, Supercat, Tiger; through to 2000, Sizzla, Luciano, Lutan Fyah, Natural Black, Gentleman, Anthony B even up to some of the newest artists like Vybz Kartel, Busy Signal, Popcaan ...I like all those artists. My band would have to speak for themselves but I know there's a vast love of varying styles of music from jazz to Brazilian to rock to whatever.

W: You have a pretty lengthy history in the music biz. Culture Shock, which I was introduced to years after the fact (again via YouTube), is pretty great, and it seems like you worked with some key figures in Canadian reggae in that group -- but that dates back to the early 90s, and you're working in a similar style even back then. What was your introduction to reggae music?

F: I guess my introduction to reggae came a little before 1984. In 1982, I bought the Specials album and became an instant rude boy. The English ska revival was it for me... Specials, Madness, Bad Manners, the Selecter, the English Beat was all I listened to. There was an underground movement of mods, punks and skinheads in Toronto at the time and we used to gather at this event called Start Dancing. Well, one night the DJ played Black Uhuru's 'Darkness' and I was like, "what is this!?" From then on it was all reggae and I started listening to a radio program named Reggae Showcase with David Kingston in 1984. At that time Michael Palmer's "Lickshot" was the number one song.

W: Also, I read somewhere that you were involved with Raggadeath once upon a time.

F: Raggadeath was a hip-hop ragga metal band that was fronted by Canadian hip-hop Queen Michie Mee. I had two songs on their second CD and we toured Canada and went to Amsterdam and Germany. Good times.

W: What about Big Sugar? The obvious common ground there is the bass player, who you worked with in Culture Shock, but I saw some footage (again, YouTube) of you playing keys and doing a bit of deejay vocal for Big Sugar at a recent festival. Is that a permanent thing, or was it just a one-time performance?

F: Yeah, the Big Sugar thing is permanent. Gordie Johnson used to come and watch me and Garry Lowe play in Culture Shock even before Big Sugar existed. He invited me on their farewell tour back in 2003 to do some guest vocals and when the thing started up again in 2010, Gordie asked me if I wanted to come forward and do some more songs and play keys. We've just finished recording a new album that will be out hopefully this spring/summer. I've got some schedule juggling to do!

W: What's next for Friendlyness and the Human Rights? Are you working on any new material? Where can people find your previously released albums?

F: Friendlyness and the Human Rights are working on some new material as we speak. We have a new song called "Right Now" that we're going to release as a single and in fact, it might be more singles until we have enough or close to enough for another full-length album. One Thing took a long time to finish because we really wanted it to be exceptional and we were doing it all ourselves. We don't want the people to have to wait so long before they hear from us again, y'know?

May Jah love be with us all. Rastafari.

You can buy One Thing by Friendlyness and the Human Rights at their official site, or visit their Bandcamp page to check out Free Tings, which is a small collection of free remixes.

BBR: End of an Era (1998 - 2011) is THIS WEEKEND

2011-05-09T13:46:00.000-07:00

Heads up everyone, the blow out show of the century, celebrating Bacteria Buffet Records is going down this Saturday, May 14th at the West End Cultural Center.

Doors at at 7 PM so please show up early. Some tickets will still be available at the door.

Line up includes The Barrymores, JFK, RWPO, The Afterbeat, Greg Crowe, DJ Co-op and more!

Check out more information about the even on FACEBOOK.

See you all there!

End of an Era (1998 - 2011)

2011-02-06T08:02:00.000-08:00

After 13 years of service to the Ska and Reggae Community in Winnipeg (and the world, really), Bacteria Buffet Records is closing shop.

I was first introduced to Bacteria Buffet Records and its owner, Rusty Far-I, years ago at my first Royal Winnipeg Porn Orchestra show at the West End Cultural Center. I was fresh to the scene and couldn't completely understand why the crowd was yelling "Butter My Corn!" or how the tuba player could both play his instrument and drink so much beer at the same time.

Needless to say, after that, I was hooked.

Bacteria Buffet gave many ska and reggae artist in Winnipeg a place to get their music out to the masses and to have a physical CD of their own to hold and hawk around to campus and community radio stations all around.

A big blow out event for Bacteria Buffet Records will be going down on Saturday, May 14th at the West End Cultural Center.

Checkout the facebook event page HERE for more information on the killer line up and ticket prices.

Thanks for all you did Rusty...

Live bootleg from '09 WSRF

2011-01-13T08:36:00.000-08:00

I hope my homies on the WSRF committee are cool with me posting this. Check it out:

"We're not as traditional, but it's in our hearts just the same..."

They were originally scheduled as the opening act, but a last-minute venue change (due to the headliners being hideously late) meant Thiefs got the prime spot at 2009's Winnipeg Ska and Reggae Festival.

This is an in-audience recording of their set. It's OK quality, and since they've now moved on to more of a rock n' soul sound (and a new name), it's probably one of the few places you'll get to hear them doing a set of ska/reggae stuff.

Download the whole thing

Stream it:

1. Bomp Bomp
2. Hook for the Money
3. Simmer Down
4. Dem Boys
5. Get Funky with Thiefs
6. The Harder They Come
7. Sunset Stabbings
8. Bleeding Out
9. Ghost in the Bathroom
10. Miscommunication
11. No Woman No Cry
12. Hook for the Money (reprise)

East vs. West (Zrada vs. Double-oh-7)

2010-08-28T12:14:00.000-07:00

Heads up! Fantastic event going on September 10th at the Kings Head Pub (120 King Street).

The scoundrels of the Iron Curtain, ZRADA, have stolen a nuclear warhead from Reggaestan. Only the heroic Double-Oh-7, with their 60s Jamaican Ska and James Bond riffs, can protect the World from disaster!
...
Zrada, however, with their Ukranian-punk sound, are a devious lot, and will surely leave our heroes in a precarious position!

Presented by Half Pints and the Winnipeg Ska and Reggae Festival

The Expos from Toronto!

2010-01-16T07:12:00.000-08:00

Join us on February 19th for a Festival Fundraiser with Stomp Records' "The Expos". Check out their official website for great new tracks.

Check out this free track Little Red Hook

Now Accepting Submissions

2009-12-28T07:45:00.000-08:00

The Winnipeg Ska and Reggae Festival is now accepting applications for the 2010 edition of the Festival from September 9-11, 2010. Deadline for applications is June 16, 2010.

Ladies of Reggae - January 30th

2009-12-28T07:38:00.000-08:00

The WSRF is proud to present:
The Ladies of Reggae
with Lady Spice, Sister J and many more!
J. Fox's (On Academy)
$3

All proceeds go to WSRF 2010!
For more info, contact matt@bacteriabuffetrecords.com or the Invisible Man at ajdy@hotmail.com

Welcome

2009-11-04T14:17:00.001-08:00

Welcome to the Winnipeg Ska & Reggae Festival. Plans are underway for the 2010 Festival, so keep checking back for updates, or follow our blog.